The Newspaper may find itself in the Obituary Section

Newspapers prepares for extinction and all viewers can do is speculate from the sidelines what they knew would ultimately be the fate of print news. When I say that I can actually count how many times I have read the newspaper on my fingers, this will not come as a surprise to 46 percent of other Americans who do not read the newspaper during the week.

With the recent economy, job loss has become more prevalent than usual; however, the newspaper has been standing under the noose for a while now. According to journalism.org, the decline in newspaper purchases can be dated back to the 1940’s, but did not drop in significant numbers until the 1990’s. So, why the changes?

Tech Daily News shares that the internet is the third most popular way for how spectators receive the news, while 61 percent of people get their news online, 73 percent watch national news broadcasts and 78 percent hear the news from local TV stations. These alternate forms of news sources are not only free, but also update citizens throughout the day. The newspaper’s information is set in ink with the news from previous days.

Some of the public believes that online news is not credible because they are leaked out so quickly that there may be false information and no fact checks. Even if this situation were to occur, the internet holds hundreds of other news reports on the same story that any faulty information would stand out. The news’ purpose is to inform and it will achieve that whether it is online, in a newspaper, or on a broadcast network.

Though this crisis does not affect my everyday life, thousands of reporters and editors have lost their jobs. The public fears that a long known tradition of being able to wake up in the morning and actually hold the news in their hands will no longer be an option. This would be devolution to those seeing this part of their culture die out, and an evolution to those steering away from it.

I believe that many other citizens like me see the newspaper as an old tradition that does not live up to our standard of technology. Just because the newspaper is dying out does not mean that the news is being pulled along with it. The news is still being delivered to citizens in different forms that gets the point across as to what is occurring locally, nationally, and around the world.

Unfortunately, there are people who do not have access to the newer technologies and rely on the newspapers to inform them. This is an important issue that illustrates how the demise of the newspaper would affect our democracy. On the other hand, citizens with access to technology are able to set up a blog that allows them to practice their freedom of speech. No method of receiving the news is superior to another, and if people find that the newspaper is not for them, then there’s an extra $1.75 in their pocket.